It's a stark message, but an apt one, portrayed as part of a hip-hop gangster movie turned on its head and aimed at teaching young people the reality of the food industry stacked against them—and how to fight back.

It’s a stark message, but an apt one, portrayed as part of a hip-hop gangster movie turned on its head and aimed at teaching young people the reality of the food industry stacked against them—and how to fight back.

“Food Fight” is a video produced by SOS Juice, a non-profit/for-profit hybrid startup that wants to sell fresh juice, smoothies, and compost in food deserts in Oakland, Calif. and across the country to help raise awarness among young people about the importance of healthy diet and nutrition.

To help raise awareness for their cause, the group produced the “Food Fight” video and accompanying free curriculum for high schoolers.

But the message is anything but juvenile.

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In the video, junk food junkies get their brains blown out by soda, overdose on nacho cheese sauce, and are garotted by Twizzlers. Thankfully, a Matrix-esque guide shows up and offers the overweight boy at the center of the fight a choice between a Red Bull and a carrot. Empowered by the boy’s choice, the former junkies are able to stand up to the corporate food mascots and take back their streets.

It’s comedic, but at the same time extremely sobering. And the lyrics drive home the point without pulling any punches:

What’s Beef?Beef is when you’re 12 years old and obeseclogged arteries, can’t see your own feetuntil you’re up in ICU, guaranteed to be an ‘I see you”From that processed food.Suicide. It’s a suicide.Don’t want no microwaves, no pesticides.Fast food’s a slow death in disguise.

Want to know more? You can watch and share the video, download the curriculum for your school or group, and even donate to SOS Juice‘s Indigogo campaign to get their first juice truck off the ground.

Food deserts, or large urban areas without easy access to healthy foods, have long been cited as a cause of malnutrition and obesity in poor, urban populations. But plopping a grocery store down in the middle of a troubled neighborhood will no more solve the nutrition problems of the community than opening a bank would solve poverty. Food desert communities need more resources than just a produce aisle, and that's where food hubs come in.

Food deserts, or large urban areas without easy access to healthy foods, have long been cited as a cause of malnutrition and obesity in poor, urban populations. But plopping a grocery store down in the middle of a troubled neighborhood will no more solve the nutrition problems of the community than opening a bank would solve poverty. Food desert communities need more resources than just a produce aisle, and that’s where food hubs come in.

A food hub, like the CornUcopia Place, which has just opened in Cincinnati, offer groceries, yes. But they also offer cafes serving healthy, affordable food, community wellness programs, nutritional education, health screenings and cooking classes. CornUcopia Place even offers space for cleaning and preparing fresh produce from the area’s community gardens, a mobile produce truck that sells fresh goods all around the neighborhood, and an on- site orchard.

In Aurora, just outside of Denver, Colorado, the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center offers a similar food hub for both the employees and patients on its brand-new glitzy University of Denver Medical Center campus, but also for the low income neighborhoods surrounding the campus. The center offers a health-conscious cafe, cooking classes, fitness classes and services, nutrition and obesity counseling, and a “Grocery Lab,” run by King Soopers grocery store that offers workshops and classes (as well as an academic setting for behavior studies) to help people make better food choices in the grocery store.

The idea behind these food hubs is simple: give a person access to healthy food, and he might eat well once in a while. Teach him why he should be eating healthfully, how to choose the food, how to prepare it, and more, and he will eat well for a lifetime.

Few of us will ever really understand what it's like to serve our country as only military personnel can. Even in peacetime, the rigorous demands our nation's armed forces endure in training and service are unlike any other job or responsibility. For this level of sacrifice and service, we claim to honor our veterans with a national holiday each November, but the reality is homelessness, unemployment, PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), drug addiction and depression plague our nation's defenders and truest patriots far more frequently than we acknowledge. Ex-Marine Sergeant Colin Archipley and his wife hope to change that… with organic farming.

Few of us will ever really understand what it’s like to serve our country as only military personnel can. Even in peacetime, the rigorous demands our nation’s armed forces endure in training and service are unlike any other job or responsibility. For this level of sacrifice and service, we claim to honor our veterans with a national holiday each November, but the reality is homelessness, unemployment, PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), drug addiction and depression plague our nation’s defenders and truest patriots far more frequently than we acknowledge. Ex-Marine Sergeant Colin Archipley and his wife hope to change that… with organic farming.

According to Archipley, we spend $1 million on every soldier deployed overseas, and there are few programs—if any—to support the reintegration process for returning soldiers transitioning back into civilian life, which can often be the most difficult battle they’ll ever face. In a 2011 TEDx talk, Archipley describes his own challenges in returning from combat, and in separating from fellow soldiers, who became as close to him as family. The bonds forged during service can be incredibly strong, and along with the challenges leaving the service brings, there are also issues for many soldiers in leaving behind fellow service men and women and the friendships that sustained them through deployment tours.

When Archipley was considering re-enlisting after his third tour of Iraq, he and his wife Karen had just purchased an avocado farm in North County San Diego that would produce much more than just delicious food. It has become a tool for returning soldiers and a force in the sustainable agriculture movement. Archi’s Acres is a hydroponic farm producing a number of sustainable, organic crops like basil, and more importantly, happy and employed veterans.

For veterans used to a life of MREs (meals ready to eat) and limited fresh food options while deployed in harsh conditions or at sea, growing real food can be a totally new experience and one they’re happy to embrace. And it’s not just their own palate and diet that makes them excited about growing organic. Archipley says the awareness soldiers have about the lack of food around the world and the issues it causes makes them invested in understanding just how important providing Americans with access to healthy, fresh food is.

Ex-marine corporal, Baza Novic, 33, is a master gardener intern in Los Angeles, and says that farming and gardening has been one of the most effective tools in his reintegration. “Working with plants is an intensive discipline that keeps me outside, active and connected to the planet, which is exactly what someone transitioning from such a high-intensity position in the military can benefit from.” Archipley created the Veterans Sustainable Agriculture Training program for just this reason. The 6-week course in organics, hydroponics and sustainable agriculture is now offered at Mira Costa Community College and California State University San Marcos. Veterans enrolled in the VSAT program also learn about resources for farm loans and financing, and Archi’s Acres is working to build more of their signature 1-acre greenhouses that can yield $1 million per year. Within the next ten years they plan to have 50-100 more sustainable agriculture hydroponic farms up and running around the country that are operated entirely by veterans.

Not only is Archi’s Acres working to provide jobs and opportunities for returning veterans, but also they’re deeply invested in supporting healthy communities. As 2011 saw the definition of the term “food deserts”—areas where access to fresh and healthy food is considered limited—Archi’s Acres seeks to bring hydroponic farming and fresh food to these areas, healing not only our nation’s veterans through organic farming, but also putting an end to the battles being fought on our plates every day, where millions of Americans struggle to provide healthy food for their families.

Major funding from Kaiser Permanente—the integrated managed care consortium with nearly 9 million members—will enable the nonprofit Wholesome Wave to expand its double coupon incentive programs in as many as 30 farmers markets nationwide.

Major funding from Kaiser Permanente—the integrated managed care consortium with nearly 9 million members—will enable the nonprofit Wholesome Wave to expand its double coupon incentive programs in as many as 30 farmers markets nationwide.

The $1.2 million grant from Kaiser Permanente will go to Wholesome Wave’s Double Value Coupons Program active in more than ten states including California, Colorado, Georgia and Maryland, as well as in the District of Columbia. The funding allows for doubling the value of federal food assistance benefits if used at farmers markets in efforts to bring more people at or below the poverty line access to fresh foods.

Some of the funding will also support Wholesome Wave’s plans to expand its Fruit and Vegetable Prescription Program, called FVRx. By providing “prescriptions” for fresh produce that can be retrieved at area farmers markets, physicians and health clinicians are now able to connect the clinical environment and community in eating a healthy diet full of fresh, seasonal fruits and vegetables essential for preventing nutrient deficiencies and serious illnesses.

Earlier this year, the USDA identified the nation’s “food deserts” where an estimated 13 million Americans live without easy access to fresh foods. Efforts to improve the health of the nation include incentives for farmers markets to come to food deserts, and the coupon program is one more component to connecting Americans with healthy eating habits.

Kaiser Permanente was able to make this program possible through its employee wellness program, which allocated $50 for more than 22,000 employees that underwent a health risk assessment in 2010.

One of the most important terms to arise in the last two years is certainly "food desert," which is an economically impoverished region with little or no access to healthy food. Credit Michelle Obama's 'Let's Move' campaign for coining the concept, and more importantly, for partnering with local supermarkets in helping to correct it. One of the most ambitious projects is Sterling Farms, an upcoming chain of markets owned in part by actor Wendell Pierce.

One of the most important terms to arise in the last two years is certainly “food desert,” which is an economically impoverished region with little or no access to healthy food. Credit Michelle Obama’s ‘Let’s Move’ campaign for coining the concept, and more importantly, for partnering with local supermarkets in helping to correct it. One of the most ambitious projects is Sterling Farms, an upcoming chain of markets owned in part by actor Wendell Pierce.

While most people recognize Pierce as Detective Bunk Moreland in HBO’s “The Wire,” it is his role in the important revitalization show, the New Orleans-based “Treme” in which reality and the big screen merge. Having grown up in New Orleans, Pierce is already the president of the Pontchartrain Park Community Development Corporation, which is building affordable solar and geothermal energy houses. His first Sterling Farms location will open in the hard-hit Ninth Ward, a region still not recovered from Hurricane Katrina; others include Harvey, MidCity and New Orleans East.

“The recovery has to be comprehensive,” Pierce stated on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” when visiting New Orleans for a night. “Housing is one thing, but then I decided to also do food deserts… In the richest country in the industrialized world, somewhere just a mile from here kids are going to go hungry tonight, and I wanted to challenge that.”

Slated to open in Spring 2012 in the Ninth Ward, Sterling Farms—named for his business partner Troy Henry’s father, who owned a pharmacy in that neighborhood—will cost $2 million and employ between 75 and 150 people. The vision does not end with four stores; plans are being discussed regarding Florida, Tennessee and around the Gulf Coast. They are looking at regions deemed deserts by the USDA, which analyzed access to healthy food in one-kilometer grids across America in 2009.

Demand for healthy food, Pierce says, is booming in these areas, despite popular assumption, which states that McDonald’s and White Castle are what these residents crave. Having grown up with the people hit hardest from the flood, he knows something that major retailers either ignore or remain ignorant of. And thankfully he is doing something about it, monthly crawfish boils and all.

]]>http://www.organicauthority.com/foodie-buzz/new-orleans-a-food-desert-no-longer.html/feed/0Is City the New Country? Urban Farms Take Over Metropolishttp://www.organicauthority.com/blog/organic/is-city-the-new-country-urban-farms-taking-over-metropolises/
http://www.organicauthority.com/blog/organic/is-city-the-new-country-urban-farms-taking-over-metropolises/#commentsWed, 21 Sep 2011 07:00:07 +0000http://www.organicauthority.com/blog/?p=10103

While the Obama Administration just announced plans to make major cuts affecting the nation's farmers in the new deficit reduction proposal “Living Within Our Means and Investing in the Future,” farming is showing no signs of slowing down—especially in American cities.

While the Obama Administration just announced plans to make major cuts affecting the nation’s farmers in the new deficit reduction proposal “Living Within Our Means and Investing in the Future,” farming is showing no signs of slowing down—especially in American cities.

Urban farming has become so popular that many cities are now working to change local zoning rules so that more—and larger—urban farms will succeed in providing urban Americans with fresh and healthy food.

USA Todayhighlighted several cities, including Chicago, Salt Lake City and Detroit—all of which are turning a focus towards hyperlocal foods grown within the city limits. Detroit, known as the destitute home of the automobile industry, is now seeing its hardest hit areas bloom with trees, fruits, vegetables and flowers. Rooftop gardens have taken over parts of Manhattan replete with beehives and fruit tree orchards; and in Brooklyn, urban farmers are even raising chickens and rabbits.

And these large-scale urban farm operations hold the potential to feed some of the estimated 13 million Americans living in ‘food deserts’—a new term mapped out by the USDA that describes areas without reasonably easy access to fresh fruits or vegetables. Eighty-two percent of food deserts are urban and, most often, residents are living at or below the poverty line with their food access being limited to nearby convenience stores and fast food restaurants. But urban farms could change that much in the same way Victory Gardens helped this nation rebuild and recover after World War II.

Urban farms also offer communities resiliency and decrease the need for excess transportation and dependence on fossil fuels to truck produce in from other states—or countries—especially as oil prices continue to climb.

Washington D.C. area neighborhoods considered "food deserts" will soon have access to fresh fruits and vegetables via a converted school bus "Mobile Market" courtesy of a local non-profit group comprised of nine restaurants. The Neighborhood Restaurant Group's market on wheels will bring healthy food options to communities where a majority of the people living there are at or below the poverty line.

Washington D.C. area neighborhoods considered “food deserts” will soon have access to fresh fruits and vegetables via a converted school bus “Mobile Market” courtesy of a local non-profit group comprised of nine restaurants. The Neighborhood Restaurant Group’s market on wheels will bring healthy food options to communities where a majority of the people living there are at or below the poverty line.

Food deserts were recently determined by the USDA to be an urban area that is more than a one-mile radius from supermarkets or farmers markets (and more than 10 miles in rural areas) as shown on the interactive Food Desert Locator Map. Eighty-two percent of the nation’s food deserts are in urban areas, and many of the people living in them rely on public transportation, which can make grocery shopping difficult. There are an estimated 13 million Americans who are considered to be living in food deserts.

Scheduled to hit the streets in October, the Mobile Market, which will run on biodiesel provided by DC Biofuels, will include customized shelving, an awning to shade delicate fruits and vegetables from the sun, refrigerators and freezers. The bus will also be painted with the help of students in the DC Farm to School Network, a program designed to bring local, healthy fruits and vegetables into area schools, and the bus will be used as an educational tool focused on the benefits of healthy and sustainably harvested food.

The absence of fresh fruit and vegetable farmers markets and supermarkets in urban areas often means an abundance of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores, some of which are now accepting food stamps — a move food experts like Marion Nestle consider a blow to the nation’s poor and a contributing factor to the number of diet-related illnesses affecting millions of Americans.

California, Arizona, Michigan and Florida are the first four states now accepting food stamps at several leading fast food restaurant chains.

Since the government assisted food stamp program (known formally as the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) began in 1934, its use was accepted only for core grocery items such as fresh fruits, vegetables, bread and milk. Snack foods or sugary items had long been excluded from the program on the grounds of those items not being ‘necessities'; and they were also not applicable in restaurants. But Louisville, KY based Yum! Brands’ Taco Bell, KFC, Long John Silver’s and Pizza Hut are just some of the locations where Americans receiving financial support from the food stamp program can use their monthly benefits.

Claiming that many food stamp recipients, which includes homeless, disabled and elderly, are incapable of cooking or preparing food for themselves is Yum!’s core argument for inclusion in the benefits program.

The number of businesses accepting food stamps, including convenience and discount stores as well as gas stations and pharmacies, increased by one-third between 2005 and 2010. The estimated amount of funds allotted for the program over the same period of time has gone from $28.5 billion to nearly $65 billion.

Food Politics blog author, Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health and Professor of Sociology at New York University, Marion Nestle writes, “Rates of obesity are higher among low-income groups, including SNAP recipients, than in the general population.” And the move from Yum! comes as First Lady Michelle Obama’s been working with the USDA on her Let’s Move Campaign designed to bring healthier food into school cafeterias across the country—especially in areas designated as ‘food deserts’, and just months after the USDA released the updated food pyramid (now titled ‘MyPlate’) which recommends fresh fruits and vegetables as a major component to every meal – foods not often found in fast-food restaurants. Says Nestle, “… it smacks of elitism. ‘Let them eat junk food’ argues that it’s OK for the poor to eat unhealthfully. I think the poor deserve to be treated better.”

Amidst all the food-related doom and gloom courtesy of "food deserts," deregulated genetically modified foods, massive outbreaks of deadly salmonella-tainted animal products and seemingly endless options of processed junk food around every corner, food in America may have a brighter future than you think thanks to a rising college course trend: Organic agriculture.

Amidst all the food-related doom and gloom courtesy of “food deserts,” deregulated genetically modified organisms, massive outbreaks of deadly salmonella-tainted animal products, and seemingly endless options of processed junk food around every corner, food in America may actually have a brighter future than you think thanks to a rising college course trend: organic agriculture.

In 1965, roughly 4 percent of farmers and animal ranchers had college degrees. Today, that number is 25 percent with nearly 70 percent having some college credits, according to the American Farm Bureau Foundation. Director of education for the AFBF, Curtis Miller, told The Huffington Post, “Everybody’s going back to school because you have to. We know that equals earning potential and survivability on and off the farm.” And that education not only helps with raising food, but explorations in crop diversity, sustainability practices, and an overall holistic approach to the modern farm.

While the average American farmer is 57 years old, the next generation of farmers committed to alternative agriculture programs and raising healthier food options is also being embraced in the marketplace and among their peers. Organic Valley has invested in a 3-week biofuel-powered bus tour (Generation Organic 2011“Who’s Your Farmer?”) aimed at connecting farmers ages 18 to 35 with students and communities across the country. And the organic food sector continues to experience growth compared with conventional food sales, indicating that consumers are willing to pay more for quality organic food despite the fiscal uncertainty wobbling the American economy over the last several years.

With more interest from college students and American consumers, universities will continue to add organic and sustainable agriculture programs to their course offerings, says Miller. And it’s not just the universities implementing organics. Grade schools and high schools across the country are embracing organic gardening in record numbers, according to Cem Akin, Director of the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation. “We have more interest than ever before in our organic gardening and orchard programs from schools of all levels all over the country ready to implement food as a teaching tool, a source of wholesome nutrition for students, and as a bridge between the students, their teachers and their communities.”

Californians may have just spotted a gem amidst the rubble of America's crumbling economy: The California FreshWorks Fund is a $200 million public-private partnership aimed at increasing healthy and affordable food for the state's most challenged communities.

Californians may have just spotted a gem amidst the rubble of America’s crumbling economy: The California FreshWorks Fund is a $200 million public-private partnership aimed at increasing healthy and affordable food for the state’s most challenged communities.

Working directly with grocers to increase and upgrade the places where low-income communities can access healthy food, the California FreshWorks Fund was unveiled by First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House last week. Obama worked with the USDA earlier this year to develop a map of America’s “food deserts”—areas with limited access to fresh foods and disproportionate numbers of fast food restaurants, ‘mini-marts’ and other places typically heavy on processed food and scarce on fresh fruits or vegetables. The interactive map indicated some 13 million Americans live in these food desert areas, which Obama sees as a factor in the rising rates of obesity and other diet-related illnesses, especially among children.

The fund is expected to create nearly 6,000 jobs in the state, and businesses will be on a points system, earning more as they decrease access to unhealthy foods, by eliminating junk food aisles and items such as cigarettes. Qualifying grocery stores and food retailers will receive financial support from the fund in order to help move designated healthy foods to the forefront of purchases for their communities.

According to Al Plamann, CEO of Unified Grocers, “While everyone agrees that it will take many years to provide all Californians with easy access to healthy, affordable foods, FreshWorks is positioned to make significant progress in the years ahead and, in partnership with strong independent grocers, I am confident that the program will be one of the most successful in the country.”

A portion of investments from the U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corporation will begin to go towards projects focused on healthy and affordable foods, the organization announced earlier this month.

A portion of investments from the U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corporation will begin to go towards projects focused on healthy and affordable foods, the organization announced earlier this month.

USBCDC is the nations most active New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC), and this program will begin to allocate investments in rural and urban areas in need of access to fresh, healthy foods and is projected to create jobs as well as stimulate area economies.

Some of the projects include the building of a retail grocery store in Pagedale, MO—the first one in the area in several decades, a supermarket in Philadelphia that created more than 200 jobs in the nation’s oldest African-American-owned shopping center and a sustainable fishery in Alaska that supports more than 1,400 fishermen.

The Director of New Markets, Historic and Renewable Energy Tax Credit Investments for USBCDC, Matt Philpott, said, “Access to healthy food is a critical problem for millions of Americans. While we are proud to have a strong record of investing in projects that promote healthy outcomes, we agree that there should be broader effort to invest in businesses that will address this issue. By working with our valued partners across the country and leveraging the United States Department of Agriculture, Health and Human Services and the Department of Treasury’s capabilities and resources, we believe we can make great strides to accomplish this collective goal with the NMTC Program.”

The USBCDC program to support communities lacking healthy nutrition is aligned with the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI), which works to address these issues on a national level.

The USDA in conjunction with Michelle Obama, recently released a map indicating the nation’s food deserts—estimating more than 13 million Americans do not have convenient access to fresh, healthy foods. Many of these food deserts afflict low-income neighborhoods and communities.